Pass by reference ?

[Nick Maclaren]

In article <38E8D449.FBC1E2AD at roguewave.com>,
Bjorn Pettersen  <bjorn at roguewave.com> wrote:
>Jacek Generowicz wrote:
>> 
>> I'm just trying to familiarize myself with Python.
>> In Magnus Lie Hatland's Instant Python, he
>> mentions that `all parameters in Python are passed
>> by reference'.
>
>The technically correct (although much less known) term is
>pass-by-object-reference.  All this means is that you can change an
>argument to a function by calling methods on the object, but you can't
>change the identity of the object (ie. simply calling a function can't
>change any name-bindings in your current scope).

Hang on.  Why is that technically correct?  Call by reference has
never implied changing any bindings in the caller's scope in any
work that I have seen - it certainly didn't back in the 1960s.
Unless I am thoroughly confused, Python uses bog-standard call by
reference, with the wrinkle that assignment is a rebinding rather
than a copying operation.  AM I confused about that?

The form of argument passing that DOES involve rebinding the
caller's names certainly exists, but I have never seen an agreed
name for it.  It was reckoned to be a bad idea (just like Fortran's
equally deceptive argument passing of scalars) by 1970, but kept
coming back in special-purpose languages.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  nmm1 at cam.ac.uk
Tel.:  +44 1223 334761    Fax:  +44 1223 334679